Verified @APCNigeria Twitter handle sparks controversy

Bolaji Abdullahi, publicity secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), says @APCNigeria, a verified Twitter handle, is not the account of the party.
The verification tag on Twitter is given to accounts with supposedly credible information. As of January, only 150,000 users were verified out of the 330 million active users on the microblogging platform.
APC’s handle was hacked on Saturday and
its name changed to Justin Sun , a man who claims to be based in San Francisco, United States.
The account traded cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin and ethereum.
At some point, the account was recovered by the handlers and Sun’s tweets were deleted, with the APC logo restored. But Sun took over the account after some hours.
In a tweet he posted after taking over, he demanded to be paid $100,000 for him to “shut up” about how the Twitter handle became his personal possession.
He also threatened to expose correspondence in the account.
“If the president of Nigeria does not pay me $100K, I’ll post all the correspondence here, and the whole world will see it,” Sun tweeted.
As of the time of filing this report, the handle’s name has been changed to John МcAfеe, and is still trading cryptocurrencies.
I’m giving 1,000 #BTC and 5,000 #ETH to сommunity!
Gеt BTC – https://t.co/XcscOCZF9f
Gеt ETH – https://t.co/EOSP7GEb8E
You must use the chance that gives you life, leave the bitcoins received from me, save them for several years, and you will be fabulously rich!
pic.twitter.com/tt02vELtvd
— John МcAfеe (@APCNigeria)
April 14, 2018
But Abdullahi said the handle, which has been actively used by the party for communication before the recent development, does not belong to APC.
“For the umpteenth time, @APCNigeria IS NOT the official Twitter handle of the All Progressives Congress (APC),” Abdullahi wrote on Twitter.
“In several official statements, we have disclaimed that handle. We view this latest development as a case of criminal impersonation.”
Bolaji Abdullahi
@BolajiAbdullahi
For the upteenth time, @APCNigeria IS NO the official Twitter handle of the All Progressives Congress (APC). In several official statements, we have disclaimed tha handle. We view this latest development as case of criminal impersonation.
8:05 PM – Apr 14, 2018
240 629 people are talking about t
‘APC WILL ONE DAY SELL NIGERIA’
Reacting to Abdullahi’s claim, Lere Olayinka, spokesman of Ayodele Fayose, governor of Ekiti state, said if the APC could deny its verified Twitter handle, it could one day deny President Muhammadu Buhari as its 2015 presidential candidate and may one day sell the country.
“A party that disowned its verified official twitter handle will one day deny that it presented @MBuhari as its candidate in 2015,” Olayinka said.
“A party that cannot manage ordinary Twitter handle is the one in charge of Nigeria!
“A Party with fraudulent member that can sell it’s official Twitter handle to a foreigner at $2,000 will one day sell Nigeria.”
Lere Olayinka – Aresa 1
@OlayinkaLere
A party that disowned its verified official twitter handle will one day deny that it presented @MBuhari as its candidate in 2015. #ShamelessAPC
1:15 AM – Apr 15, 2018
27 29 people are talking about this
Lere Olayinka – Aresa 1
@OlayinkaLere
A party that cannot manage ordinary Twitte handle is the one in charge of Nigeria!
#ShamelessAPC
8:25 AM – Apr 15, 2018
21 19 people are talking about this
Lere Olayinka – Aresa 1
@OlayinkaLere
A Party with fraudulent member that can s it’s official Twitter handle to a foreigner at $2,000 will one day sell Nigeria.
10:17 AM – Apr 15, 2018
24 24 people are talking about this
Another Twitter user, @gbengasesan, said there is more to the development than meets the eye.
“If this isn’t a joke, I don’t know what is: Nigeria’s ruling party’s twitter handle, @APCNigeria, allegedly sold for $2,000. Buyer claims he bought from “the president of Nigeria”. There’s probably more to the story…,” @gbengasesan wrote.
‘Gbénga Sèsan
@gbengasesan
If this isn’t a joke,

WhatsApp will now charge businesses to send you messages

WhatsApp on Wednesday said it will start charging businesses for sending marketing and customer service messages, as the messaging platform faces slowing usage and revenue growth.

Messages from businesses will be charged at a fixed rate for confirmed delivery, ranging from 0.5 cents to 9 cents per message and depending on the country.

After acquiring WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014, Facebook has been looking at ways to generate revenue from the brand.

WhatsApp, which has around 1.5 billion users, says large businesses will be charged for sending non-promotional content, such as shipping confirmations, appointment reminders or event tickets.

Users can also send messages to the business to ask questions, and responding to these messages will be free, for the first 24 hours — but will come at a premium thereafter, when compared to SMS rates.

The messenger service had announced in January it would start allowing small business accounts to communicate through the WhatsApp Business application, which has over three million active users.

Matt Idema, chief operating officer, WhatsApp, had said the company intends to charge businesses in the future, though the “details of monetisation were not figured out”.

Facebook also said on Wednesday that users on its namesake app and Instagram can now see the amount of time they spend on the app each day and receive notifications when they exceed a self-prescribed threshold.

Users will also be able to mute notifications from the apps for up to eight hours.

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Obama loses 2.5m followers in Twitter purge

Barack Obama, former president of the United States of America, has lost 2.5 million followers to the clean-up exercise being carried out by Twitter.
The social media company had announced that it would delete accounts of fake followers saying prominent accounts could see a significant drop.
Twitter’s main account lost 7.5 million followers in one day from 62.85 million to 55.35 million.
Kim Kardashian-West, US reality TV star, lost 1.7 million followers going from 60.2 million followers to 58.5 million on Thursday.
Jack Dorsey, Twitter chief executive officer, also lost 200,000 followers.
lost 200k followers )
— jack (@jack) July 12, 2018
Donald Trump, the US president, lost 400,000 followers.
Other people affected included Rihanna, who lost 900,000 followers and Justin Bieber, who lost three million followers to 104 million.
Twitter noted on Wednesday locked accounts are different from spam and bot accounts — two other issues that have plagued the platform — in that they were usually started by “real people,” but the company is unable to verify they’re still being run by their initial creators.
Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s head of legal, policy, and trust, said the clean-up will affect accounts that were frozen over the years for suspicious behaviour.
“This week, we’ll be removing these locked accounts from follower counts across profiles globally. As a result, the number of followers displayed on many profiles may go down.”

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Whatsapp will now tell you which messages are forwarded to curb fake news

Whatsapp, in a fight against fake news, has added a ‘forward message indicator’ to make it clear when a user has received a forwarded message.
The instant messaging platform will notify users when a message has been forwarded, rather than composed by the sender.
The latest version of WhatsApp includes the feature, which marks forwarded messages in italicized text above the content of a message.
The Facebook-owned application has is regularly used in the spread of viral misinformation.
“Starting today, WhatsApp will indicate which messages you receive have been forwarded to you,” WhatsApp said in a blog post on Wednesday.
“This extra context will help make one-on-one and group chats easier to follow. It also helps you determine if your friend or relative wrote the message they sent or if it originally came from someone else.
“To see this new forwarded label, you need to have the latest supported version of WhatsApp on your phone.
“WhatsApp cares deeply about your safety. We encourage you to think before sharing messages that were forwarded.”